JanerBlog

Odd Dream

So last night I had a weird dream.

The weird thing about it was that it was a dream about how weird dreams are. Most of the time my dreams are relatively normal, about social situations, or versions of that forgetting-one-class-at-semester's-end anxiety dream. In this one, on the other hand, I was aware of the fact that I was dreaming, and that I knew dreams were weird, and my subconscious was deliberately trying to make the dream as weird as possible to reinforce that fact. I couldn't pick what was coming next; I could only watch each new thing come up and go, "Yeah, that's pretty weird, all right."

First I was at a basketball game in the old Chelsea High School gym, only with players wearing all sorts of different uniforms from different teams. The players were all shapes and sizes and races, and suddenly they all dropped to all fours and their heads turned into dog heads, which snarled at us. For some reason, we'd come down out of the rickety wooden bleachers. Then the dog-basketball-players kind of parted, though they kept growling at us, and Alton Brown walked onto the court and basically offered to be our tour guide, though I can't remember now where we were going. He led us out into the street, and I can remember thinking "Oh boy! Dreams are cool! Wonder what's coming next?" And then the damn alarm went off and I didn't get to see anything else good and weird. I tried to snooze my way back into the dream -- on rare occasions I can do that -- but no luck.

My dreams are really entertaining lof late. Wish my conscious imagination were that fertile.

Dayum.

Keith Olbermann's excoriating take on Clinton's Fox appearance.

On Moral Cowardice

As of this morning, I am even more ashamed of our government -- house, senate and president -- than I possibly thought I could be.

I'll let John Scalzi tell you why.

I want to fold up and cry from shame.

More help for Bill and Nadine...

Hey, Everybody.

Bill and Nadine Messner-Loebs are in the process of furnishing their house. I posted this list to the local Freecycle, but it can't hurt to post here.

Here's the list of Needed Stuff that Nadine provided me:

nail gun (to install trim)
hand sander with a bag to collect dust (to refinish furniture)
sturdy ladder
nice computer table
bookcase
2 file cabinets (tall)
2 file cabinets (short)
ironing board
compost bin
roto-tiller or shovel
fabric to make curtains
curtain rods
chair recliner

If you happen to have any of these things, or know someone who does, please contact nadinekeyes at yahoo dot com or bloebs at yahoo dot com. They're in the Brighton, Michigan area, and they have a van that they can use to do pickups from nearby areas. If you don't have any of these items, but would like to make a donation, Bill can accept Paypal at bloebs at yahoo dot com.

Thanks again -- every little bit helps!

Best Idea I've heard in a while

In the spirit of the feminist comics blogs out there, I thought I'd post this link -- Girl-Wonder wants Artists!

This link is a reaction to one of the Wizard How to Draw books, scans of which have been making the rounds at several blogs I read. The challenge is this: Draw a well-known male superhero in proportion, pose and costume comparative to that of a well-known female superhero.

Post your examples at the Girl-Wonder.org link above. See also this post for more fun links and reactions.

Cotton, Paper or China

So yesterday was our second anniversary, and we celebrated by using up a bunch of gift certificates. I had two AMEX cards eft over from a work bonus a couple years ago, and so we went to one of the more upscale places in town, the Epic Bistro. We can usually only afford this place once in a blue moon, and so we always look forward to it.

Now, I'm not the kind of person who automatically equates high prices with good food; just the opposite, in fact. I'd ten times rather get good takeout from a cinderblock ethnic joint (say, perhaps, J Gardens; still the best Middle Eastern food in Ann Arbor) than a foofy restaurant with fancy decor and so-so food. Epic Bistro puts the lie to that equation, though. You pay handsomely for your dinner, but a handsome dinner it is. The food there is some of the best I've ever consumed, ever. Each mouthful is a delight, beautifully plated and excellently prepared. All the little touches are evident: plates are chilled icy-cold or heated rip-roaring hot as the dish requires, sauces are delicate and not overdone, and each item in the entree is carefully flavor-balanced against everything else.

Now, when I go out for a meal like this, I uaually want something I can't prepare at home... what's the point of paying $25/plate for salmon when I could use that same money to buy two pounds of wild-caught fish and grill it up with my own chili-lime butter? Makes no sense. But ah, duck breast. I am such a sucker for it. I've ordered it the last two times we've gone there, and oh me oh my, what that chef can do with duck. Medium rare, like duck sushi, seared on the outside with a rosemary crust and just the right amount of fat left on. Served with pencil-thin asparagus, a halved poached plum, port wine reduction and a mushroom risotto so creamy and fluffy that it made your toes curl. Dessert was a shared pumpkin-chocolate cheesecake and a half-glass of 10-year-old Taylor Fladgate Tawny.

Yeah, that's the kind of dinner I want from an expensive restaurant. Too bad the gift cards both bounced. ARGH. I must get that straightened out today.

Post-dinner was a trip to the Oasis Gardens, also on a gift certificate from Paul's work. Then we both crawled into bed early and slept like the dead.

It was wonderful, and even better was sharing a night out with my wonderful husband without any obligations, distractions, or deadlines. Case in point: He called me from work right at three yesterday. Who's the mushiest mudskipper of them all?

Why I love John Scalzi, part seventeen in a series:

Schadenfreude Pie, complete with recipe and taste-testing pictures. For savoring while you enjoy the misfortunes of others. And listen to the Avenue Q soundtrack.

Oh, yeah.

And at three pm, two years ago today, we gotted ourselves hitched.

I've never made a better decision in my entire life. Love you, Paul.

Workout

This morning, Paul and I went for our first formal workout at WMU's Student Rec Center. It's really, really nice inside, and is the only gym I've ever seen with enough cardio machines to keep their droves of human hamsters happy. Everything's shiny, clean and new. There're 8000 ft2 of weight machines, a track, and a pool/sauna all within easy reach.

The workout went smoothly; stretching and warmup walking, then 25 minutes of cardio on the elliptical (dang, I love those things) and then 30 minutes of weight machines. I never got up the spine to start jogging like Tish (who is still my hero) but after twenty minutes of hard (160 strides/min) work on the elliptical without needing to stop or slow down, I think I may try jogging /walking intervals over the next couple weeks to see how much I suck. I think I can do it, but I just have some deep hardwired, post-high-school-gym aversion to running.

I didn't try to push or overdo anything; used all the weights on the lowest setting just to get my body back into the feeling of working out. I feel really good and energized now, and I'm hoping that we can continue to drag our asses out of bed at oh-dark-thirty three times a week.

Tea, Redux.

Went dinner with some friends last night (Hey, Guillermo! Hey, Yong-Mi!) to a new indian place called Temptations. It's at Washtenaw and Golfside, across the street from the old PuttPutt / Cottege Inn. The food there is quite excellent. We got three entrees and shared them, along with a basket of naan. Every single one of them was excellent; Matar Paneer, Tandoori Chicken and a hot chicken curry thing.

Afterwards, since we were on that side of town, we dropped by Hiller's, and while I struck out on Lyon's Gold Label, I got my hands on some Yorkshire Gold (They had Typhoo, but only the green blend), some Kasugai Peanut snacks, some McVitie's Ginger Nuts* and two pomegranates. Score!

*wise readers will note that I excercised great willpower and left the HobNobs on the shelf.

Tea.

Does anyone know of a place in or around Ann Arbor that sells Lyon's Gold Label Tea in the wee pyramid bags? Last time I struck out and had to order it from Dublin, which is really super expensive and dumb. Does Hiller's or Trader Joe's have it? I don't want to make a special trip out to Ypsi if they don't.

Yes, I'm back on caffeine again. This last month, and the coming month, are a bitch, and autumn is tea season, dammit.

No, I'm not a tea snob. If I could find another tea that had that rich, deep, smokey, full-body that Lyon's has, I'd drink it. But Twining's is like water by comparison, and Tetley's British Blend is only so-so. Ironically, Red Rose comes the closest to that loverly taste.

Anybody had PG Tips? Is it good?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

BEST! NEWS! EVER!

I actually did kermit arms and yelled "YAAAAAAAAAAY" when I watched this. The cats were terrified.

Trying to find the "Morning After" pill in rural Ohio

Via Boingboing:

Ohio woman tries desperately to find emergency contraception within 72-hour window.

Here is a woman who is the mother of three children, and doesn't want more. She can't use hormonal birth control, has had cervix surgery so she can't be fitted for a diaphragm or other IUD, and her SO is ineligable for insurance-covered vasectomy surgery for another year. Their condom broke. She could not find a hospital or clinic within a hundred miles that would give her emergency contraception.

Her only other option past that point would be to have an abortion. If we, as a society, want fewer abortions -- and I think it's pretty safe to say we all do -- this kind of shit has got to stop.

Have you donated to Planned Parenthood recently? Think about it.

Know anyone considering voting for Dick DeVos?

If they're not completely insane, send them this link: DeVos: Science teachers should be allowed to present intelligent design.

Good for Michigan, my ass.

In A World...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLF2eda7TSs

Gettin' legit

So. Tonight, after a few hours of accounting, logging and cataloging, I now have a legitimate copy of almost every single episode of This American Life. I'd already bought most of them (nearly 200 of them, in fact) but I spent a few hours and figured out which ones I needed, and picked them all up at once. I'm missing somewhere around ten episodes, and that's only because Audible doesen't offer them, or WBEZ hasn't released them. The big purchase happened because they recently dropped the per-episode price from $3.95 to a mere ninety-five cents.

I blame JimO, and his reminder of ethics. Not that I'd have anything unethical on my hard drive. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not me.

Sizer Wedding!

Two weekends ago, Paul's younger brother Dave got married to his long-time girfriend Brenda. I have been a total lazybones about getting the pictures uploaded, and I'm really sorry it took so long for me to get around to it.

Anyway, here's some pictures from the day. It was a total blast, the food was really good, and we had a ton of fun tearing around with all the kids and dogs. And yes, the bride's bouquet was a wienerdog.

Harvest Fest

Yesterday I had one of the longest days I've worked in ages. I got up relatively early and did some errands around the house, then got down to the farmer's market, where I had quite the haul; enough that I had to come back with the car to retrieve the remainder of the bounty. First punkins, cider and grapes of the season. Yum!

I then drove out to Brother Tom's house near Grass Lake and helped him put in his front lawn. Our soon-to-be inlaws were there to lend a hand, and it was great to get the chance to visit and talk with them all -- they live out of state, so it was a rare treat. They're real nice folks, and many hands made light work. I was especially impressed with Amanda, who took right to the hard work, and even helped me retrieve a truckload of strawbales from the farm-- she even loaded the truck all by herself, and did a fine job of it, especially for someone who's never done that kind of work. Tom's a lucky man; he's sure found himself a fine partner.

After dark, when all the yardwork was done and my beanmobile refilled at Wackers, I drove home, showered, and then proceeded to cook. I made puree from the punkins in preparaton for Thanksgiving's pies, and roasted the seeds with honey and salt (soooo goood). I also hauled out the Mehu Maija for its second run, and put up four quarts of perfect, organic concord grape juice. There was enough left over for a big pitcher, and we drank it greedily -- it's such a fine taste, and so much a part of my childhood. I was especially lucky to get my hands on some concords this year -- a late frost killed almost all of the crop on this side of the state. A friend at the market parted with ten pounds, and I was extremely grateful. We managed to save a glass for both Neighbor Nora and Neighbor Katya, and both pronounced it excellent.

Today was a ton of fun. I gave myself a much-needed break from the studio and went to the Tillers Festival just south of town. Oh, what fun. See, Tillers is this organization devoted to preserving old pre-industrial farm techniques -- everything from training teams of oxen to building barns without nails. They teach classes in blacksmithing, chair caning, woodworking, masonry -- and their volunteer efforts are slowly turning their 450+ acres into a series of historically accurate homesteads. In another ten or twenty years, there will be many outbuildings, with each secton of the farm representing another period in time. They also teach these historical methods with an eye towards aiding in third-world countries -- a tractor and gasoline are out of the financial range of most poor villagers, but a team of trained oxen is not. I saw a few interns who I think were there studying to take knowledge back to their home countries. That rocks.

There was an ox-powered sorghum mill, and when the ox got tired, kids took turns rotating the giant bar round in circles. Green foamy water slowly poured out of the press, and was transferred into tubs and then a shallow reducing table, similar to the type used for making maple syrup. I asked one of the volunteers, who told me that it only takes 1/5 the time to make sorghum molasses than it does maple syrup. You could buy jars of the sorghum -- I got some last year at the Farmer's Market, and it was heavenly! -- thick and dark and ropy and fruity-sweet. I bought two pints this year, so I wouldn't run out over the winter.

Huge teams of the biggest draft horses I've ever seen -- so help me, the grey spotted (appaloosa?) pair were eighteen hands each -- took rubber-wheeled carts of patrons around the perimiter of the land, while the drivers told about all the upcoming projects. There are goats, sheep, an experimental paddy with hand-planted rice in perfect rows, a pair of holstein calves, and the most amazing menagerie of yard fowl I'd seen outside a county fair: ducks, geese, chickens, roosters and guinea fowl of all colors and sizes. The only thing missing were peafowl. Some of the kids pointed at ducks and geese, and said they were their old 4-H projects, like the big white duck appropriately named Ping.

The afternoon was a surreal mix of old and new: teams of oxen plowed demonstration furrows, a woman gave fung shui demonstrations, men in traditional Amish dress sold watermelons, the local solar and wind guys handed out brochures, a hippie kid in a knit rasta cap showed how to hand-crank rope from twine, the Bronco Biodiesel guys gave their schpeil, and a friend of Nora's showed me how to make small batches of sauerkraut and kimchee, one quart at a time. Weird, wonderful, and so far up my alley, it's out the other side. The only bad part was that I came dressed for a contra dance, and none happened. I was seriously bummed out, especially after Chris Dilley offered to dance with me.

Of course I forgot my camera. I'll keep an eye on the internets to see if anyone else has posted pictures.

comment spam

In the last couple of weeks, the comment spam has been getting totally out of control; today I've deleted about a hundred and fifty bogus comments.

Unfortunately, I've also nuked a couple of valid comments as well... so if you don't see yours, please don't think I hate ya. It's all the spammers' fault.

Karen, Cece, you two were specific ones I noticed, too late, as the page was flushing the lost comments. I suck.

Traitor to the Cause

Recently, I've been getting back into indie-pop music.

No, really.

See, the thing is, I've heard almost no enjoyable indie-pop since about 1996, when our local alterna-station (93.9, the River, out of Windsor) changed to a hideous easy-listening format. It was also around that time when Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveller all flashed in the pan, and my boyfriend-at-time and I physically chucked our copy of Cracked Rear View from overplay. REM's best years were long behind them, and there wasn't anything folkypop left on the scene to replace them -- though a bunch of solo artists tried (Tracy Chapman, Shaun Colvin, Michelle Shocked), no one could fill their 900-lb gorilla shoes. After that, pop music started this horrible slide into way-too-young-girl singers and boy bands, or hiphop so lewd as to be unlistenable. Indiepop seemed to go the opposite direction, becoming more and more forcibly ironic.

I dunno about all of you, but forcible pretentious irony bores the shit out of me. I see these hipster kids running around in polyester pants and plaid shirts, and I want to say, "look, that stuff sucked the first time around, and your wearing it now because it sucks, ironically, does not make it suck less, but more. Now there's some irony for ya." But most of the hipster kids I know are pretty nice, smart folks, so I just kinda look past it. Hell, I owned enough flannel in 1992 to clothe a camp full of lumberjacks, and I often wore said flannels with combat boots and a skirt, so I can't exactly talk about dressing obnoxiously.

Oddly, several of the bands that I love dearly tread a fine line between art-house pretentious irony and self-realizing-silliness, like They Might Be Giants, but they -- at least in my opinion -- come off far more as acid-trippy nerds with huge brains and too much time on their hands. And OK Go, who are firmly in the irony camp -- but dude, anybody who can choreograph dance routines with treadmills gets a free pass.

So imagine my surprise when, last year, Becky Cooper and my buddy Shaun at work gave me a huge pile of new alternamusic to listen to: Belle and Sebastian, Hayden, Iron and Wine, Beta Band, Nick Drake, Sufijan Stevens, the Ditty Bops, Flaming Lips -- Wow. Yeah. This is good stuff. Some of it, like Iron and Wine, is so sincere it makes me cry with its beauty and poetry and reverence. God help me, I even like Death Cab and Postal Service. I got the Feist album Let it Die the other day, and I've been listening to it constantly. So good. So pretty. "Mashaboom" is burrowing into my brain, but in a good way. It's also helping that Kalamazoo has WIDR, an outstanding indie radio station, playing appropriately good college alternapop, world, hiphop, jazz, ska (Skalamazoo!) and other sundry wonders, like the Saturday Morning J-pop show. But I digress.

All of these bands, with their hooky, folky music, sing to that part of me that once bought Tracy Chapman and Indigo Girls and Edie Brickell albums, seeking out what, in essence, is poetry set to music. Smart, competent lyrics with good solid instrumentation behind. Ambiguous wordplay. Odd chording. Gimme gimme.

The absence of good indiepop in past years, I'm certain, is what drove me headlong into the world of Irish / Folk music. There simply wasn't anything else worth listening to, at the time. I would hate to think that Irish music was a phase for me, but since I've stopped playing regularly, I've been slipping away from listening to it as much as I did. Good, favorite bands like Dervish, Lunasa, Altan and Steeleye never fail to make my heart skip a beat, so the love is obviously still there. I hope someday I can have the time to go back to music full tilt, as I once did. But now -- now my life's slipping back into indiepop, it seems. In some ways I feel like a traitor, giving up on the celtic stuff... sigh. Still, it's what's got my ear right now.

Yeah. I've spent the last week finally purchasing a bunch of my bogarted albums, getting legit. Thanks to some giftcards and a trip to the used record store, I've got ten so far, and need to get another ten to get up to speed. Then I can start buying new stuff.

Recommendations?

UPDATE: Sonovabitch. As of last week, The River's back. Am I freaking psychic or what?

Know what's good?

Fresh homemade mozzerella with homegrown tomatoes, homegrown basil, local garlic and balsamic vinegar.

That's reeeeeeeeeally good.

Thursday night I'm totally making Gnocchi a la Speedy. It involves vodka sauce.

What Finches Say

Storytime! Unka Jane, tell us a story!

Okay, okay.

Not so long ago, the spring that Paul and I were dating seriously but not yet engaged, we watched a pair of tiny house-finches building a nest in the upper corner of his front porch. The female was a rosy brown, and the male had a beautiful dark pink head. They made the cutest little twittering sounds as they built, and we started talking for them. Being birds of little brain, all they could say was "Nest." That's all they really needed to say, considering that's all they spent time thinking about: "Nest. Nest. Nest? Nest." For some reason, we named them Dave and Dory Finch.

One day we looked into the nest and discovered it was built entirely out of thornbush branches; inch-long thorns stuck into the hollow where the eggs would be laid. Fearing that they would puncture the little pink babies, Paul placed a thick wad of dryer lint in the nest and we sat back to see what would happen. We were actually figuring that they'd sense the disturbance and fly off to rebuild elsewhere, but when Dory Finch returned, she saw the thick soft mat and approved of it, thinking that her husband had made an excellent find and had brought it to the nest in her absence. She did this happy little butt-dance, wiggling the lint into place with her backside, just so.

The Finches had their babies, and eventually flew away. Their story was so cute that Becky Cooper made mention of them in our special wedding poem. We still joke about them, occasionally.

Fast-forward to last month, when I baked the ginger-peach pie. I was in the Food CoOp, visiting with my buddy Heather Finch, and told her about how good it was. Her eyes got all big as I described it, and so I invited her over for a slice.

Later that day, she dropped by. Paul looks down from his studio and says, "Hey, there's a Finch on our front porch."

I said, "Know what she says?"

"No."

"Pie? Pie. Pie!"

So now, Finches have two words: "Nest" and "Pie".

Becky Cooper, this one's for you

Hat tip to Steve Simmons: First recorded wheelchair backflip. Evah.

I know I say this word too frequently, but: Awesome. I am filled with awe at this kid.

Obligatory 9/11 post

I don't feel up to posting today. I'm disgusted by most of the "Tragedy Porn" stuff that's been on tv and radio the last few months, and ZeFrank's most eloquent videoblog post pretty much sums up how I feel.

I wish 9/11 hadn't been a call to war. I wish we hadn't squandered the world's goodwill. I wish several thousand civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq weren't dead by violent means. I wish our country actually were more secure. And most of all, I wish our fellow Americans would wake up and smell the coffee about how dirty this administration is. I look back on how hopeful I was, four and five years ago, that something good might actually come of it. I look back at my peace-rally attendances, at my letters to congress, at working for the Kerry campaign, and it all seems so futile. It all seems so useless. I haven't done much activism, other than the occasional call to my senators over a specific bill, in two years. I just feel so deflated. Part of me feels that the country's so snowed that we'll never be free of the Cheneys and Rumsfelds and Roves.

Paul and I watched V for Vendetta last night, and I wish I still had that kind of faith in my fellow countrymen. No, dumbass, not the part about blowing up Parlaiment, not the vigilante justice. I speak of the ending, where the citizens took to the streets and took back the government despite the odds of death and imprisonment. "People shouldn't be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their people."

Indeed.

One Moose, Stew Moose

It was cold and rainy today, so I decided to make some nice comfort food. I dug around in the freezer and found a package of moose cube steak from Layla. Having just recently watched the Good Eats episode entirely built around cube steak, I knew that the proper application for this stuff was breading and deep-frying, but I just wasn't up to the grease. I also know from watching Alton that cube steak is tough stuff, full of connective tissue (Go food nerds!). What better thing to do with it than stew it up? I browned it in the bottom of the stewpot with some onions, garlic and crimini mushrooms, then added water, barley, wine, baby yukon gold taters (about the size of grapes) and a host of other old veg we had lying around. Some miso paste in place of bullion, and ... mmmm. Moosey Stew. So very good, and excellent comfort food on a blustery day.

Something Awesome This Way Comes

I went through Archive.org last night. It was tres awesome. In addition to relinking all the Librivox books, they also have a metric asston of free audio, including an enormous (read as: 2500+ live recordings) Grateful Dead Archive. Thew, that one's for you, honey.

They also have old radio shows, free podcasts, and my favorite: public-domain live recordings, from artists who've given their permission. You can hear everything from a small teahouse concert by Breathe Owl Breathe at Crazy Wisdom in Ann Arbor, to this year's Death Cab tour, Uncle Earl, Greensky Bluegrass, Mogwai, Fishbone, Guster, Robyn Hitchcock, Kristin Hersch, Throwing Muses, Kimya Dawson, Billy Bragg, Rusted Root -- Go cheggidout.

Fire Alarms

In response to the Hernandez family's horrendous tragedy, Paul and I went out and got fresh batteries for our fire alarms and checked them all again to be sure. Do yourself a favor; if you're reading this from home, get up right now, walk over to your fire alarms, press the little button on them and make sure you get a sharp, lifesaving beep. If it wasn't for that device, and a brave brave daughter, we'd be short an entire family of good people.

Recent reads

I've been reading a lot lately.

Fun Home by Allison Bechdel is tops on my list... I bought it about three weeks ago and have read it at least three times. Deep. Complex. Ironic. Pensive. Ascerbic. Really, really intellectual. Best book, of any stripe, that I've read in a long while. Buy a copy. Hell, buy two, you'll need a loaner. The hardcover's worth it... luscious dustjacket, and by the time you finish it, you'll want it in hardcover.

Blankets by Craig Thompson. Reread this for the first time since purchasing it (twice) in 2003. I think I liked it even better this time through. So, so good.

Artesia by Mark Smylie. Again, rereading, because it's been too long since I read the first two, and I just now have the third book. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Engaging. Stunning art. I really must buy an original page before they're all gone.

DMZ by ... I forget. But it's from Vertigo. This is turning out to be a pretty decent series. Writing's nice and dark, art fits the characters well, the scenario's plausible enough to not set off my bullshit alarms, and I'm a sucker for anything grimly post-apocalyptic. I greedily tore through the first ten issues this evening and now I want more.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin. I'm halfway through, and loving it. Left Hand of Darkness is next.

Currently listening to Pride and Prejudice via Librivox.org. Um. Rachel, Lisa -- I love you both, but I just simply do not grok the Austen thing. At least this one has a somewhat engaging plot -- unlike Emma which I tried last year from the library, and returned after listening to the first thirty minutes -- but man, it's a slog. I just can't relate to the characters and all their priveledge and idleness and frivolity. Meh. I want to like it, I really do... but... yeah. Not my cuppa.

House Fire

Lea Hernandez has had a house fire this morning. She, her husband and kids are all alive; unfortunately the same can't be said for some of her dear pets. Such terrible loss. Keep an eye on her Journal for more information, and how you can help.

Sending love and prayers, Hernandez family.

UPDATE:

Now sending money, as well: if you're able, please consider a donation to these good folks. Lea can take Paypal at divalea @ gmail dot com. Please see for Lea's specific requests and updates.

Movin' on up!

I got off of work last night, grabbed Jim O and we headed up to Brighton to give Bill Messner-Loebs his new computer from Scott McCloud. We had a great dinner and talked about all sorts of stuff, and then we got to the best news of all: He and Nadine finally have a place to call their own.

For those of you unfamiliar with their saga, here are a few links to help you understand why this is so significant.

I've never seen Nadine looking so good, or so happy. She was positively radiant as she showed us around, popping the lids off of paint cans and talking about all the bright colors -- especially her favorite, purple -- that she's going to paint the place. She's always wanted a purple room, and by golly, now she's gonna have one. Bill's got his own studio now, painted a beautiful sky blue, and with a drafting table all set up and ready to go.

The place needs significant cosmetic work, but they're already going at it hammer and tongs: they had primed and painted some rooms, put up tons of spackle and tape in preparation for more paint, and were getting arrangements made for some of the bigger items that will need to be upgraded. Once they have the place painted and a few rearrangements taken care of, it'll be just perfect for them. They'll even have space to do Nadine's ceramics, and for Bill to teach cartooning classes -- they've even got the support of the community leader behind them! It's really exciting to watch all this come together.

They're transitioning now between the motel and the new place, and so they won't be ready for significant furniture for a few weeks yet, but right now they're incurring all the little expenses that accompany any move: Curtain rods, switchplates, garbage cans, spackle, cleaning supplies.

If anybody wants to send a housewarming gift, Bill can accept Paypal at bloebs@ yahoo dot com, or can receive mail at Bill Loebs, PO Box# 558, Pinckney, MI 48169-0558. I know there's a Target, a Home Depot and a Lowe's nearby if giftcards are an option.

Once Bill and Nadine are more settled in, I'll post again, both to here and the local Freecycle community and give a list of the furniture they're looking for. I know for sure that they'll need a nice, sturdy futon and a solid wood drop-leaf table -- so if anyone in the Detroit/Brighton/Ann Arbor area has one they're willing to part with, please contact me.

Nerd Nostalgia.

Bless you, YouTube.

Native Michiganders rejoice:

Original full-length Detroit Zoo commercial
Fifty watts per channel, babycakes.

McCloud 50-State Tour, Day Minus Two

So last night, we stumble home from the wedding at 1:30 am. Paul goes upstairs and plays the messages on the machine. I come upstairs a minute or so later, and after listening a second, say -- "Is that who I think it is?"

It was.

Scott McCloud and family, who're currently roaring their way from Southern California to New York City in time to kick off their yearlong Making Comics 50-state tour, were calling from South Bend, Indiana to see if we could hook up and take Bill Messner-Loebs his new computer. (Hooray for Mongol Express: When it absolutely, positively has to get there eventually...)

After a fanspazzy moment (Dude! Scott McCloud's on our answering machine!), we elected not to wake the McClouds in the middle of the night, and set the alarm to call them at a reasonable hour the following morning.

A few hours later, we were on the road to the 69/80/90 interchange in Indiana, where we picked up the computer. Our trip down saved the McClouds enough time -- by not having to divert their trip through the Detroit area -- that we were able to cajole them into joining us for brunchy stuff at a nearby restaurant. Okay, they'd already eaten brunch, but we cajoled them into yam fries and crabcakes, at least. And good yam fries they were.

Clan McCloud are such nice folks, and it was so nice to get a chance to hang with them in a relaxed, unpressured (i.e., non-convention) setting. Sky and Winter told us about their Nintendogs and Veronica Mars signings, and we talked everything from Sims-based webcomics to the Dresden Dolls and back again. Ivy and Paul also discovered they have the same taste in early-eighties music, by way of comparing notes on Magnetic Fields songs.

Making Comics' official release date -- and the official start of the tour -- is Tuesday, September 5th.
Be sure to keep an eye on the Tour Page for more info and scheduling -- and to find out when they're coming to your state!

Brim Full of Bratzels on the Forty Five

So my buddies Gary and Sandy got married this weekend. It was lovely, to say the least. Sandy's dress was exquisite, and so totally her. The groomsmen were all in long tailcoats with silver leaf-patterned vests, and also looked stunning. The bridesmaids wore lovely rich purple dresses that could totally, completely be worn again for a formal occasion. And the flowers ... oh my. The flowers we absolutely gorgeous; a mix of fuscia orchids and yellow roses and bright orange gerbera daisies, with black calla lilies (do they even make those?) thrown in for added effect. Stunning.

Here's a few picks -- I like the blurry one of the happy couple exiting the best.

Love to paint them mousies...

So I did a Mouse Guard pinup a while ago, with the intention of surprising David with it at Wizard World Chicago. As you may have read, all hell broke loose and, though Paul did a bangup job of computer coloring it so that David could see what I had in mind, I hadn't had a chance to get back to it.

Till now. Click for a bigger image.

The character is Gwendolyn, the as-yet-unseen leader of the Mouse Guard. Hey, I had to draw her as a buttkicker, didn't I? She's fighting -- of course -- a green rat snake. Yes, they really do have blue eyes.

Don't call him Skippy. Only I get to do that.

A couple weeks back, I also finished the pinup of Scipio from Templar Arizona:

Hot. Tay.

Spike's posted him in the Templar gallery with her commentary, here.